History of the Symposium Syriacum By Fr. René Lavenant

Until 1972, all the patristic conferences held in the West were dedicated solely to the study of the Byzantine and Latin traditions. Noting a lack of a congress that was dedicated to the Syriac tradition, Fr. Ivan Zuzek, S.J., then Rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, and Fr. Ignacio Ortiz de Urbina, S.J. († 1984), Prof. of Syriac at the Institute, started thinking about a Syriac symposium. Their views were shared by Prof. Antoine Guillaumont († 2000), Prof. of Syriac patristics at l'Ecole Pratique des Hatues Etudes of Sorbonne (later at the Collège de France), and Fr. François Graffin, S.J., Prof. of Syriac at the Institut Catholique in Paris and then director of Patrologia Orientalis. The four scholars decided that a symposium on Syriac studies should be held every four years, starting in 1972.

The first Symposium Syriacum (26-31 October, 1972) was held at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, organised by Fr. de Urbina. Some of the eminent Syriac scholars who participated were †A de Halleux, †L. Leloir, J. Mateos, Mgr. B. Gemayel, S. P. Brock, L. Abramowski, †W. Strothmann, H. Drijvers, †J. M. Fiey, and †Mgr. J.-M. Sauget. All the participants had an audience with Pope Paul VI in the Vatican (see picture).

The second Symposium (13-17 September 1976) was organised by Prof. A. Guillaumont and Fr F. Graffin at the Centre culturel les Fontaines, Chantilly, France. Remarkable was the increased number of participants which grew to eighty Syriac scholars from Europe, Asia and America. The papers that were presented studies topics related to manuscripts, exegesis, patristics and liturgy.

The third Symposium (7-11 September 1980) was organised by Prof. Gernot Wissner in Goslar. This time the symposium concentrated around a single topic, "The contacts between the Syriac and other cultures".

The fourth Symposium (10-12 September 1984) was organised by H.J.W. Drijvers in Groningen - Oosterhesselen. The main theme of the congress was "Literary Genres in Syriac Literature". The papers showed "how Syriac-speaking Christianity took over and transmitted the common heritage of classical culture and the literary products of nascent Christianity" (H.J.W. Drijvers, the proceedings).

The fifth Symposium (29-31 August 1988) was organised by Prof. Emilio Platti at Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven. The number of participants reached over one hundred. Worth noting were, for the first time, papers on computing problems by Giorgio Borbone and by George Anton Kiraz. Another new feature of the congress was an increased number of participants from India and from the Middle East.

The sixth Symposium (30 August - 2 September 1992) was organised by Rev. Dr. Lionel Hunter, and Rev. Dr. W. Horbury at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Noteworthy was the introductory paper by Sebastian Brock, "Syriac Studies in the Last Three Decades: Some Reflections" who remembered the deceased Syriac scholars: Fr. Ortiz de Urbina, Prof. Arthur Vööbus, Fr. Hambye, and Dom Louis Leloir.

The seventh Symposium (11-14 August 1996) was organised by Dr. Witold Witakowski and his wife Ewa Balicka-Witakowski at the Department of Asian and African Languages, Uppsala University. Among the usual range of topics, noteworthy was the interest shown for the issues of philology, grammar and dialects.

The eighth Symposium (26-30 June, 2000) was organized by Prof. Rifaat Ebied at the University of Sydney. This was the first time the Symposium was held outside of Europe. Noteworthy was the participation of the various Syriac-speaking communities who invited the participants for dinner and services every evening.

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